Thursday, June 26, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Putin Admits to Aggression in Ukraine but Leaves Loopholes for More

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 26 – Even as Vladimir
Putin is being praised by some for having the Russian parliament rescind its
authorization for the use of force in Ukraine, the Kremlin leader has admitted that
he has done just that, left himself a variety of loopholes to do more, and
promised to continue to “defend” ethnic Russians and others in Ukraine and
elsewhere.

Speaking in Vienna on Tuesday, Putin
said that he would “not conceal” the fact that Moscow “used our armed forces in
order to guarantee the freedom of the expression of the will of Crimeans” and
to “block certain armed formations of the Ukrainian army,” his clearest
acknowledgement yet of what preceded the Anschluss of Crimea (kremlin.ru/transcripts/46060).

As Andrey Illarionov demonstrated in
an Ekho Moskvy blogpost yesterday, Putin’s words show that Russian action in
Crimea fall under the United Nations definition of aggression and thus constitute
“a public confirmation” of his “direct participation” in the launching and
conduct of “an aggressive war against Ukraine” in violation of international
and Russian law (echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/1347516-echo/).

The Russian parliament’s earlier
authorization does not affect that, and its decision, at Putin’s request, to
rescind its earlier action does not end the threat.First, Putin could get the parliament to
reverse itself again anytime in a matter of hours. Second, the parliament’s earlier,
2009 authorization of such use of force in this way remains very much in
effect, officials say (pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2014/06/25/7030092/view_print/

And third and perhaps most
ominously, the Russian president, even as he made his acknowledgement about the
use of force in Crimea, did not back away from the arguments he has used to justify
the use of that force. Indeed, if anything, his words suggest that he has
adopted an even more expansive definition of what he calls “the broad Russian
world.”

Putin stressed that he and his
government will always defend “ethnic Russian in Ukraine and that part of the
Ukrainian population and people which feels an indivisible connection with
Russia not only ethnically but culturally and linguistically and feels itself
to be part of the broad Russian world” (interfax.ru/world/382467).